2001.04.22: April 22, 2001: Headlines: Directors - Payton: Obituaries: New York Times: Obituary for Peace Corps Director Carolyn Payton
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2001.04.22: April 22, 2001: Headlines: Directors - Payton: Obituaries: New York Times: Obituary for Peace Corps Director Carolyn Payton
Obituary for Peace Corps Director Carolyn Payton
''The fact of my being here should be a message to blacks,'' she said in an interview with The New York Times Magazine in 1977. ''This has been a white, middle-class adventure in the past. I'd like to tap the great reservoir of black interest in Africa, for example.''
Obituary for Peace Corps Director Carolyn Payton
Carolyn Payton, 75, Is Dead; Directed Peace Corps in 70's
By DOUGLAS MARTIN
Published: April 22, 2001
Carolyn R. Payton, a psychologist who was the first black and the first woman to head the Peace Corps, died on April 11 at her home in Washington. She was 75.
The cause was a heart attack.
Dr. Payton was director of the Peace Corps from September of 1977 until November 1978. One of her major goals was to attract more blacks and Hispanics to the volunteer overseas service organization.
''The fact of my being here should be a message to blacks,'' she said in an interview with The New York Times Magazine in 1977. ''This has been a white, middle-class adventure in the past. I'd like to tap the great reservoir of black interest in Africa, for example.''
Another goal was to bring youthful idealists back to the organization after the Nixon administration's emphasis on skilled experts.
''I believe very strongly that the ability to provide technical assistance should be secondary to a volunteer's motivation,'' Dr. Payton said in an interview with U.S. News and World Report in 1977.
Dr. Payton began in the Peace Corps as a field assessment officer in 1964. She went on to supervise the selection of officers.
She also worked as an overseas country director, supervising 130 volunteers working on projects on eight islands in the eastern Caribbean.
Dr. Payton was forced to resign after disputes with Sam Brown, the director of Action, the umbrella agency that then oversaw the Peace Corps and domestic volunteer programs. One major point of disagreement was Mr. Brown's proposal to send volunteers for short periods to developing countries and then bring back the skills they had learned to fight poverty in the United States.
Two weeks after resigning, Dr. Payton told The Washington Post that Mr. Brown was trying to turn the corps into an ''arrogant, elitist'' political organization intended ''to meddle in the affairs of foreign governments.''
''The Peace Corps has strayed away from its mission,'' she said. ''As director, I could not, because of the peculiar administrative structure under which the Peace Corps operates, do anything about this situation. As an ex-director, I am free to sound the alarm.''
Carolyn Robertson Payton was born on May 13, 1925, in Norfolk, Va. She graduated from Bennett College in Greensboro, N.C., and received a master's degree in psychology from the University of Wisconsin. She earned a doctorate in counseling and school administration from Columbia University Teachers College.
She was a professor of psychology at Livingstone College in Salisbury, N.C.; Virginia State University; what is now Elizabeth City State University in North Carolina; and Howard University. She returned to Howard after her initial Peace Corps assignments to direct counseling services from 1970 until 1978.
After resigning as Peace Corps director, she again returned to Howard to become dean of counseling services from 1980 to 1995. The combination of pragmatism and kindliness she brought to the post was suggested by tips she gave Essence magazine in 1992 to help parents and children deal with college rejection.
One suggestion was to recognize that the young person might not yet be mature enough to make it in college. ''Don't consider the rejection final,'' she advised.
Dr. Payton is survived by her sister, Jean Robertson Scott of Washington.
Links to Related Topics (Tags):
Peace Corps Annual Report: 2001; Carolyn Payton; Carolyn Payton (Director 1977 - 1978); Obituaries
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Story Source: New York Times
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